Network News

Get the Morning Fix and the new Afternoon Fix delivered to your inbox or mobile device for easy access to the top political stories of the day. All you need is one click to get Morning Fix and Afternoon Fix!

With independent groups flooding the state's airwaves and the two candidates -- state Sen. Scott Brown (R) and state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) -- raising money as fast as their campaigns can count it, there are numerous examples of how each side plans to both position itself and attack the other.

Brown, in his ads, is the independent outsider who isn't part of the problem in Washington but wants to be part of the solution. From his now famous "pickup" ad -- expect LOTS of Republicans to copy that one in a few months time -- to his new radio ad featuring his daughters defending him against Democratic attacks, the clear play from Brown is that "business as usual" is no longer acceptable and that it's time for a change. (Sound familiar? It should. It's the message Barack Obama used to win the presidency.)

Coakley's ads, on the other hand, are heavy on populist outrage over the Wall Street bailouts and light on any mention of either her party affiliation or President Barack Obama -- an amazing development given the overwhelming Democratic advantage in the Bay State. "In the Senate, I'll be accountable to you," she says in one commercial.

Outside groups, which have grown increasingly active in the state over the past week, have largely carried the negative messaging in the race.

The Democratic-aligned groups -- the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Service Employees International Union -- have focused on raising questions about Brown's authenticity ("Don't let him take us, or our kids, for a ride," says the narrator of the DSCC spot) while also trying to link him to a series of unpopular Republican national figures like former President George W. Bush and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. (The SEIU ad notes that Brown's campaign is "being supported by the same extremist group that backed Sarah Palin.")

Conservative independent organizations have hammered away at Coakley on taxes, health care bill and national security. An ad for the American Future Fund accuses Coakley of wanting to raise taxes and urges to voters to call her and tell her "we can't afford more taxes".

Make no mistake -- both national parties as well as the bevy of third party groups likely to play a role in the midterm elections -- view the Massachusetts race as a messaging litmus test in advance of the national election in November.

Democrats have insisted for the better part of the last year that the residual distaste for the Bush Administration remains a potent issue in House and Senate races across the country and will be a centerpiece of their negative message against Republicans.

GOP strategists, on the other hand, argue that the "throw the bums out" mentality will play in their favor as they urge their candidates to run as independent voices willing to shake up the status quo while also offering an aggressive indictment of Democrats' control of all the levers of power in Washington.

If Brown manages to win, expect Democrats to quickly dismiss the loss as an outlier due to Coakley's substandard campaign. But, privately, something close to panic may well set in if the alleged ace in the hole -- linking Republicans to the Bush Administration and/or Palin -- doesn't come through in a state as strongly favorable to their party as Massachusetts and in a political environment that is tilting away from them on the issues of the day.

Republicans believe that Brown's candidacy is already a blueprint for how they can be competitive almost anywhere in the country in November and so, regardless of whether Brown wins or loses next Tuesday, you can expect a heavy dose of the sort of independent/status quo shakeup message that Brown has ridden to something close to a dead heat in Massachusetts.

Go Scott Brown. We need some balance in Washington so that Obama, Pelosi and Reid cannot make their personal agenda the agenda for the entire country. Republicans won't get majority, but they will at least be able to have bipartisanship on every issue if Scott Brown is elected. If Coakely is elected she will be a bigger disappointment than Obama. Already she is stating "all terrorists have left Afghanistan and is promising to raise taxes and let this unGodly health bill go through. If she is voted in there will be no stopping anything the elitist crowd in Washington wants. Please bring some stability to Washington great people of Massachusetts. You'll still have the majority, but no more backroom deals will be able to be made.

Funny thing about people who invoke the Constitution or the Bible to support whatever selfish position they lay claim to.. they act all haughty and self-righteous but expect the mere mention to make their whole case for them, even lazier than people who post links.

Libertarians see themselves as spiritual descendants of Jefferson, teabaggers think it's about taxation, republicans lay claim to it too.

Bsimon1: alas, the true market believers will never lose faith in the infallibility of the free market. No number of failures will ever make a dent in their convictions, because their beliefs are matters of faith.

I call them "free market zombies," the decorticated walking dead, they who will always say that the problem is that we didn't deregulate enough, markets were distorted, risk was mispriced, it isn't a static model... Ecomomics is the only field iof study I know of (I refuse to call it a science) where advocates of approaches with perfect records of failure can get tenure.

I think it's at least a century away from being anything more than flypaper for the incompletely educated.

For anyone who wants to actually follow the rules here: noacoler is BANNED poster Seattle Top / GoldAndTanzanite / Chris Fox. Our host, Mr. Cillizza, has asked that we ignore or shame him for repeatedly coming back after being banned. Please take that into consideration.

37th & O writes
"The repeal of Glass-Steagall was so stupid - you can thank your sell-out Bill Clinton for that one."

Not sure why you think I have any emotion invested in Bill Clinton, I never voted for him. I voted for Perot. Twice. Though I'm not too proud of the 2nd time. WJC's Glass-Steagall signature was a flaw of his triangulation strategy. For one, he apparently bought into the Greenspan theory that markets would police themselves. Whoops. I guess we can all agree that was a colossal phukcup, right? Turns out a little regulation can be a good thing. The beauty of our system of government is that mistakes can be corrected. Time for Washington to get crackin' on some of the deregulatory mistakes that've been made over the last 30 years.

Posted by: Noacoler | January 13, 2010 8:21 PM
--------------------------------------
Let's give him a fair chance. I'm actually interested in knowing who they are, and why they are so distasteful. I just went to the old ordinary state university, so I doubt I would qualify. At least I sure don't feel like an elite!

Hey libs, where is Obama, your savior, when you need him? I see he doesn't plan to visit Mass to "help" Coakley. I think he realizes it's New Jersey, take two. He doesn't need another embarrassing failure.

By the way, after Brown beats Coakley, what will be your excuse? The same one used to explain away the losses in NJ and Virginia - that Coakley was a bad candidate (like Corzine and Deeds)?

Like it or not, the Coakley / Brown election is not just about...Coakley and Brown...it is about the people of Massachusetts, and how they view their government in Washington.

It is about the Democratic politicians in Washington, in lockstep with president Obama and some of his radical extreme appointees, and the decisions that are being made to make our country safe.

With all due respect to the late Sen. Kennedy and to the State of Massachusetts and their love for the Kennedy family...it is time to move on.

The Obama that Sen. Kennedy endorsed as a candidate for the presidency...is not the same Obama that is now in the White House. The candidate Obama was the uniter and the one to change the status quo. Today president Obama has done neither and is considered by 50% of the American people as a failure.

It is truly a Massachusetts vote on the performance of president Obama...Mr. Obama does not need another enabler ( Coakley ) for his misguided agenda.

The Senate seat used and abused by Chappaquiddick Ted Kennedy is not the property of the nefarious Kennedy clan. Scott Brown is the best hope for restoring that office back to the people of America and restoring some sanity and common sense to the Senate. Kennedy was in there way too long and he has done immeasurable harm to America and its people! Remember: Scott Brown for freedom!

Scott Brown is my state senator...and I voted for him because I thought he wasn't a right wing nut job & I think two parties are good for Massachusetts. I regret my vote mightily!!! Scott Brown is NOT a gentleman & he has either morphed into a Dick Cheney acolyte or he hid it well before. He brags about his many years of "service" in the Guard but has never volunteered for any assignment that would put his well-coiffed head in danger. He has posed nude for Playgirl in the past; I think he's a Republican John Edwards-- an arrogant, self absorbed narcissist.

Weekly Standard writer John McCormack was pushed down to the sidewalk outside a Washington fundraiser by a Coakley aide named Michael Meehan, a longtime aide to and spokesman for Democratic candidates and officeholders.

The photo makes it pretty clear that Martha Coakley, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, witnessed an assault and battery and didn’t lift a finger to stop it.

How to help cure unemployment
-----------------------------
Do not hire any more cabinet officials or government agency heads with Ivy League degrees. Enough already. Nothing has destroyed the reputation of Yale-Harvard-Princeton more than the present administration. Geithner did not learn how to pay his taxes. Summers sleeps through meetings and has contradicted almost all that he used to believe in; Holder wants to accommodate the architect of 9/11 with a show trial in New York, but try the CIA agents who interrogated him. The old Yalie Van Jones thinks Bush was in on 9/11. And Barack Obama of Harvard Law Review believes the Muslims gave us everything from the printing press to the Renaissance and Enlightenment. One contractor, surgeon, engineer, or pilot is worth five lawyers and academics. The Ivy League seminar explains a lot of the problems with the now imploding Obama administration — so much self-referential talk of elite standards, so little actual proof of any at all.

37th & 0 -
Do you support the reinstatement of Glass-Steagal & tighter regulation of wall street specifically & big business generally? If so, which candidates are you supporting that are promoting these ideas?

ScienceMan writes
"Tax breaks do not help the unemployed, they need food,shelter, and medical care when required. If the government does not help them who will?? Charities and churches are bankrupt. No matter what political party is in power it is going to take a long, long time to cure the country..."

That is the argument the Dems should be making. And limit it to the piece I excerpted. Skip the Bush bashing, the electorate doesn't need to be reminded. Just state the facts and make your case:

People don't have jobs, and are losing their houses & their health care. The safety nets designed by the gov't, the so-called 'big government programs' are what are keeping the unemployed off the streets. Charities don't have the resources to solve that problem. Cutting gov't services won't solve that problem. The problem can be solved, but we have to work together, and to do it responsibly will, yes, require tax increases.

I think when Dems are asked about healthcare, the ought to cite the costs of COBRA coverage for people who've lost their jobs. Do a little simple math, looking at the unemployment / underemployment rates, adjust for dependents & ask how many people can afford healthcare for themselves or their families if they're out of work. Does Scott Brown have an answer? Any of those TEA people? Certainly the GOP leadership in congress don't. Dems need to pose those questions to the electorate, and quit this nonsense about Sarah Palin and George Bush. They're gone, old news. Make your case with facts. Stand up for what you believe in, instead of demonizing the other guy.

We are still at double-digit unemployment. But I am relieved that it was not 15% thanks to Obama’s various stimuli programs, bailouts and healthcare initiatives that saved us.

Is this Ivy League brilliance? For three years as candidate and now as president, Obama targeted the productive small business and entrepreneur class. They should be “patriotic,” “pay their fair share,” and “spread the wealth” to the more deserving. If they made over $250, 200, or was it 150K(???), they should pay higher state, federal, payroll, inheritance and now healthcare taxes. From time to time, Obamians, like Anita Dunn and Van Jones, referenced the great redistributist and killer Mao, or the greed of “white people.”

I could go way on, but you get the picture. Somehow in such a landscape, the family dentist, small trucking operator, and insurance agency owner were supposed to go out and hire more people, buy equipment, and work a little harder, when they a) don’t know how high their taxes will climb, and b) accept that they are targeted by this president and so expect that any new healthcare, energy, or education initiative will come at their expense.

Jobs, you see, are largely instead made by the federal government, which borrows about $100,000 per employed in some grand new “millions of green jobs” or “remaking America” plan that puts more of us on the unfireable, always promoted federal payroll.

Why instead would not the proverbial small business person pull in his horns and wait out the statist experiment, as our present 10% unemployment rate suggests is actually now happening — despite printing an extra $2 trillion through deficits this year alone?

Barney Frank, Democratic Chairman of the House Banking Committee, and Chris Dodd, his Democratic counterpart in the Senate and Hillary. Democrat taking all sorts of money from Wall Street interest for her campaigns. had nothing to do with the economic collapse ??

Ever hear of Harold Raines ????

The leadership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were all CLINTON APPOINTEES.

Who signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act when his wife wanted to run for Senator from New York? Bill Clinton.

Eight years of the Bush administration w six years of inept republican congresses created such an economic disaster for this country that its going to take at least four if not eight years for the cure to take hold for what was an economy on life support when Doc Obama and his staff took over care for the patient. Would anyone in his right mind recall the same doctor who nearly killed his patient the first time around??? The body politic is seeking a miraculous cure for the bush bubble disease. Unfortunately one does not exist except in the superstitious minds of conservatives who think praying to St Ronald Reagan is the answer. Tax breaks do not help the unemployed, they need food,shelter, and medical care when required. If the government does not help them who will?? Charities and churches are bankrupt. No matter what political party is in power it is going to take a long, long time to cure the country from the bush bubble disease that it contracted from 2001 to 2009.

You will be better informed if you read the editorials of The Financial Times or The Economist. They tend to have editorials that are based on reality rather than a political agenda. Quoting the Washington Times indicates you subscribe to the greater fool theory. You are hoping that your reader is a greater fool than you are. Good luck with that.

I really wish there were more conservatives who post here who are worth reading. They are typically just so retarded. Look at the ones on here. Leapin, Bubette, and Zouk. Just instant ignores for me.

==

Not for five years now. Before Bush’s second election there were conservatives with reasonably whole minds, on board the small government thing but able to take issue with platform planks they didn’t like. They’ve all bailed now, and they’re either silent or they’ve come over to the light.

Now all we get are the bedwetters.

And frankly, it’s been years since I ran into a conservative who wasn’t a ranting angry prick. Though there is one at my gym, hair and face kinda like Lieberman, who buttonholes naked guys in the shower room and recites Limbaugh points ten minutes at a time, you can see them trying to engineer a getaway. I nailed him, wouldn’t let him change the subject, had him gibbering. Then he tells me I have a right to my opinion. Wow, really?

The most that Mass can tell us is how other states would behave if Coakley and Brown were running in that state and ran on the issues that they ran on there. In this particular year I do not think that the results could be projected in time to November even in Mass.

CC, It is not very likely with Obama around that there will be mass panic among Democrats. Now you make be hoping for a Brown win because it offers you more potential material. To me a win seems implausible but I know I am not very good at making that kind of assessment. Neither is the media.

That our "educated class" is educated beyond its intelligence, and mistakes mastery of its language and attitude for wisdom and competence.
It is full of itself, and values too highly its skill sets, which are entertaining, but not on the optimum level of consequence. On this optimum level are resolution, moral clarity, and an ability to understand and connect with a great many people, things for which the chattering class is not known. This class fooled itself, and much of the country, for which the country will not soon forgive it.
Obama is president, but he isn't a good one, and he has long ceased to dazzle. He and the educated classes rose briefly together, and his failures and fall are their own.

I swear, if Republicans want minorities to vote for their candidates, they could start off with...well, not hating minorities.

==

I don’t think they want votes from minorities, I think they’ve written them off. Their bread and butter comes from arousing the filth against “impure Americans” like, oh, everyone who doesn’t look like John McCain.

Just amazing how clueless they are at anything numerical .. like alienating Latinos, which may actually turn Texas (!) violet. Fastest-growing demographic in the country and the only GOP support among them is people with bad vision who check the wrong box. Way to go, Gomer.

I just re-read Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale.” More relevant than ever, must-reading for anyone who’d like to know how we would end up if the baggers got their way.

Could it be that President Obama's legal team is imploding due to a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party? So many new developments regarding the Black Panther case occurred in the latter half of last week that it is hard keeping up with them all. But none of them look good for the Obama administration or for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s Justice Department.

The case involves paramilitary-garbed Panthers caught on videotape (which was backed by copious testimony) engaged in what observers say were intimidating and racially charged activities outside a Philadelphia polling booth on presidential Election Day in 2008. Even though a judge was ready to enter a default judgment against the Black Panthers, based on a case brought by career attorneys at the Justice Department, the Obama administration suddenly decided last spring to drop three of the four cases and punish the final one with an incredibly weak injunction...

So the Republican Rising! is right back to race baiting. Well maybe Rat Robertson was just trying to channel Trent Lott's setimental view of Strom Thurmond's political career. I suppose if the Haitians had accepted their slavery and not fought Napoleon, they wouldn't be having the problems they have today.

Wait sorry, it was the pact with the devil that made this happen, not the fact that they won their freedom. To keep the Republican view of good and evil aligned with current events, all you have to do is look at the col...oh forget it. Someone might get offended. But I do wonder if Sarah Palin has a position on how Haiti brought this on themselves.

No it is the POS Eric Holder that has been appointed Attorney General.
Holder to speak at CAIR-sponsored event despite ban
"Despite a ban on Justice Department employees participating in events involving the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Attorney General Eric Holder will appear in a forum where CAIR is one of the major sponsors...

Then there is this:
Holder's Former Law Firm Representing 'High Value' Detainees
Of all the infuriating aspects of the decision to transfer five 9/11 war criminals to civilian federal court, the one that grates most is the contention that the Obama administration is finally moving forward after “eight years of delay” — as Attorney General Eric Holder put it at his Friday press conference — during which the Bush administration managed to complete only three military-commission trials.

This is chutzpah writ large. The principal reason there were so few military trials is the tireless campaign conducted by leftist lawyers to derail military tribunals by challenging them in the courts. Many of those lawyers are now working for the Obama Justice Department. That includes Holder, whose firm, Covington & Burling, volunteered its services to at least 18 of America’s enemies in lawsuits they brought against the American people. (During 2007 alone, Covington contributed more than 3,000 hours of free, top-flight legal assistance to our enemy detainees.)

Whar are his positions ?"
You only need to know one: He's pro-choice. That makes him a RINO. So start the campaign to replace him with a teabagger.
Posted by: koolkat_1960 | January 13, 2010 3:29 PM | Report abuse
Whar are his positions ?
Posted by: leapin

You should do your own research on his positions before you declare him "your man"; it just makes you look foolish.
A New England republican is not the same as one from the south. For reference, look at the records of Collins and Snowe from ME. These are the type of republicans that have been getting run out of the 20% party.
Posted by: jasperanselm |
------------------------------------------
Thanks for the info. I relieved that he is not a free luncher. Is a free luncher from the East different from one out West?

You should do your own research on his positions before you declare him "your man"; it just makes you look foolish.

A New England republican is not the same as one from the south. For reference, look at the records of Collins and Snowe from ME. These are the type of republicans that have been getting run out of the 20% party.

"[S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.

And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle on the one side is Haiti the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we meed to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come."

It's truly comical watching all the repubes fall all over themselves to support Brown in this race when he'd be pilloried like Crist if they actually took a step back and actually looked at his positions. Too funny!

Martha Coakley is trying to link Scott Brown to Bush-Cheney. One of her opponents in the primary, Mike Capuano, also tried to run against Bush-Cheney and look where that got Capuano.
Voters have moved well beyond Bush-Cheney and are now looking at the Obama administration.
The President owns the economy, double digit unemployment, two wars and the surge in Afganistan, plus trying to push through an unpopular healthcare reform bill. There is plenty of blame to go around for the current problems, from both sides of aisle, but Obama is the president.

Let's hope that Acorn, SEIU, and the Black Panthers (all out in force) will not steal this election; it's really time for the BS corruption to stop; Indies (I am one) have seen the light, and there's no D on the bulb.

Let's hope that Acorn, SEIU, and the Black Panthers (all out in force) will not steal this election; it's really time for the BS corruption to stop; Indies (I am one) have seen the light, and there's no D on the bulb.

What republican base? We're talking about MA here; there isn't a republican base.

It's truly comical watching all the repubes fall all over themselves to support Brown in this race when he'd be pilloried like Crist if they actually took a step back and actually looked at his positions. Too funny!

Brown is campaigning as an "independent outsider" who says that "business as usual" is no longer acceptable. Coakley, on the other hand, is campaigning as a populist who isn't strongly associated with her party in Washington. Obviously, this is because the Republicans are a dominant party on the rise, while the Democrats are weak and panicky. Great analysis!

Ddawd, they're my favorites too. Unfortunately, some of their staffers are missing too. Hundreds of thousands dead, in such a poor country. It's a pretty staggering tragedy. We couldn't even imagine it happening here, because we have building codes that would have prevented much of this devastation.

I don't think a special election in the middle of January will tell us much, but I do think we will get a good sense as to how energized the Republican base is. Are they showing up to vote? Of course, we might not be able to read too much into this, since I doubt Brown is someone who excites the teabaggers, but I think it's the main sort of bellwether to look out for.

But this is a special election in the middle of January in what will be a blowout. I doubt we draw too much from it.

You don't have to go anyplace but here to get the Beltway CW all tied up in a bow for you:

"Republicans believe that Brown's candidacy is already a blueprint for how they can be competitive almost anywhere in the country in November and so, regardless of whether Brown wins or loses next Tuesday,'

Yes, that's it. It's all good news for Republicans, win or lose. and if Brown loses, I do hope they use his campaign as a 'blueprint.'

Since the dems don't want to make good on the most "open and honest" promises the MA election, win or lose, tells us they have their undies in a bundle. Making good on their promises doesn't accomplish their agenda but it reveals the truth.

The Fix writes
"something close to panic may well set in [for Democrats] if the alleged ace in the hole -- linking Republicans to the Bush Administration and/or Palin -- doesn't come through in a state as strongly favorable to their party as Massachusetts"

If that is their strategy for winning elections - liking opponents to Bush and/or Palin - they deserve to lose. Tell us what you're going to do rather than playing the character assassination game.